Electronic devices, such as portable media players, cellular phones, personal digital assists (PDAs), and the like, are prevalent in today's marketplace, as are the peripheral electronic devices that support their use, such as docking stations and the like. As competition in the personal electronics marketplace becomes ever more heated, consumers have become more demanding in terms of both the functionality and use of such devices.
As more and more functionalities are packaged in an electronic device, the power requirements of the electronics also increase. Portable electronic devices are typically powered by an internal battery when the device is disconnected from an external power source. Because power conservation is paramount to sustain the electronic device as long as possible from the internal battery, power management techniques may be provided to monitor and control various circuit operations. In some devices, the battery or power source may be embedded and very difficult or physically impossible for a user to replace. Therefore, any type of power savings that can be gained are very important to prolong the life of the power source that enables these types of devices.
Many power saving techniques have been introduced to try to mitigate the impact of battery power constraints. Since leaving power enabled to idle circuitry also consumes power, a common power management technique disables power to those circuits or portions of the device that are not being used. However, this often leads to the device being unresponsive to a user until power is re-enabled to those circuits or portions of the device that were powered down. This latency, while frustrating to some users, also causes problems for communication between devices, as a device whose transceiver is powered down cannot send or receive communications.
Accordingly, what is desired are improved methods and apparatus for solving the problems discussed above. Additionally, what is desired are improved methods and apparatus for reducing some of the drawbacks discussed above.